Why movement matters

Movement. Such a simple concept. Yet it’s so vital for a healthy life. Your body is made to move. My body is made to move. Every body is made to move. 

Just like the saying “food is medicine” you may have heard that “movement is medicine.” Truthfully, I don’t like this phrase because in our society we don’t use medicine until something is wrong. 

Movement isn’t optional but is vital for a healthy body.  We need to use a different saying, maybe something like “movement is life.” Because just like your body requires certain nutrients to function, your body requires movement to function well. Studies back this up. I’ll throw some studies at you, just in case you were skeptical. 

Keep in mind that all studies don’t prove movement caused the positive outcome, but a high correlation was found between activity and that outcome.

• One study (1) found that too much sitting and too little exercise can accelerate the biological aging of cells in elderly women.

• Numerous studies support a link between brain health and exercise. This study found an improvement in memory and thinking skills after 6 months of weight training.  Another study found that exercise results in larger brain volumes, which reduced risk for dementia (2). 

• Movement can also support your mental health. Regular exercise has been found to reduce stress and anxiety.

• A large-scale study found that physical activity was associated with a lower risk of 13 types of cancer (3). 

• Another study found that 20 minutes of moderate exercise can stimulate the immune and produce an anti-inflammatory response (4). 

It’s clear that moment has positive effects on the body. Why? What does movement DO for the body?

Your heart

Regular movement supports a healthy heart. Physical activity increases blood flow, strengthens your heart, reduces the risk of coronary heart disease, and can also lower blood pressure. 

Regular activity can also improve your heart rate variability (HRV) (5). This is the variability between your heartbeats. A good HRV score helps to maintain heart health and helps you deal with stress and anxiety.

Your breathing

Moving regularly supports your respiratory system. The more efficiently your lungs work, the better able they are to get oxygen into the blood and throughout the body. Regular movement helps to strengthen your muscles, including the respiratory muscles. 

Your muscles, tendons, and ligaments

Regular movement is necessary to increase muscle mass and tone. The tone of a muscle is how ready that muscle is to “go” at any moment.  Strengthening muscles improve stability, balance, and coordination. 

Both tendons and ligaments connect and stabilize structures in your body, and are required for any movement. Although these tissues are slow to strengthen relative to muscles, activity is required to keep them healthy. 

Your bones and joints

Regular movement helps to maintain the full range of motion in your joints. It’s like the saying goes, If you don’t use it, you lose it. 

Movement also changes the structure of your bones. It affects the size, shape, and strength of your bones. Just like regular movement improves muscle strength it also increases bone strength. 

Your hormones

Daily movement supports your endocrine system. It can reduce stress hormones, such as cortisol. Overall, it helps maintain healthy levels of your hormones.

Your sleep and energy

Moving every day is a great way to energize yourself and support energy levels throughout the day. It certainly increases blood flow throughout your body, which supports the healthy functioning of every organ.

It can also improve your sleep (6) by 

• reducing the amount of time you lie away in bed during the night.

• improving sleep quality.

• support an adequate amount of sleep.

What matters most is getting movement into your life and, hopefully, finding a way to love it. You don’t need to go to the gym or go for a run. Move every day – even just a little – and you’ll find that the benefits flow in early on. Start where you can with what you have.

How do you like to move your body? Comment below!

Sources:

1. Aladdin H. Shadyab et al. (2017)Associations of Accelerometer-Measured and Self-Reported Sedentary Time With Leukocyte Telomere Length in Older Women. American Journal of Epidemiology

2. University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences. (2016). Exercise results in larger brain size and lowered dementia risk. ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160802103723.htm

3. The JAMA Network Journals. (2016). Physical activity associated with lower risk for many cancers. ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160516115302.htm

4. Stoyan Dimitrov, Elaine Hulteng, Suzi Hong. (2016) Inflammation and exercise: Inhibition of monocytic intracellular TNF production by acute exercise via β2-adrenergic activation. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2016.12.017

5. Routledge, F. S., Campbell, T. S., McFetridge-Durdle, J. A., & Bacon, S. L. (2010). Improvements in heart rate variability with exercise therapy. The Canadian journal of cardiology, 26(6), 303–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0828-282x(10)70395-0

6. Dzierzewski, J. M., Buman, M. P., Giacobbi, P. R., Jr, Roberts, B. L., Aiken-Morgan, A. T., Marsiske, M., & McCrae, C. S. (2014). Exercise and sleep in community-dwelling older adults: evidence for a reciprocal relationship. Journal of sleep research, 23(1), 61–68.